their author's testimony, what were their characteristic traits and how
they would act under given circumstances. The logical sequence of events
is carefully maintained; nothing happens, either for good or for evil,
other than might befall under the dispensations of a Providence no more
unjust, and no more far-sighted, than Trollope himself. There is a good
deal of the _a priori_ principle in his method; he has made up his mind as
to certain fundamental data, and thence develops or explains whatever
complication comes up for settlement. But to range about unhampered by any
theories, concerned only to examine all phenomena, and to report
thereupon, careless of any considerations save those of artistic
propriety, would have been vanity and striving after wind to Trollope, and
derivatively so, doubtless, to his readers.

Considered in the abstract, it is a curious question what makes his novels
interesting. The reader knows, in a sense, just what is in store for him,
--or, rather, what is not. There will be no astonishment, no curdling
horror, no consuming suspense. There may be, perhaps, as many murders,
forgeries, foundlings, abductions, and missing wills, in Trollope's novels
as in any others; but they are not told about in a manner to alarm us; we
accept them philosophically; there are paragraphs in our morning paper
that excite us more. And yet they are narrated with art, and with dramatic
effect. They are interesting, but not uncourteously--not exasperatingly
so; and the strangest part of it is that the introductory and intermediate
passages are no less interesting, under Trollope's treatment, than are the
murders and forgeries. Not only does he never offend the modesty of
nature,--he encourages her to be prudish, and trains her to such evenness
and severity of demeanor that we never know when we have had enough of
her. His touch is eminently civilizing; everything, from the episodes to
the sentences, moves without hitch or creak: we never have to read a
paragraph twice, and we are seldom sorry to have read it once.